Good day. Brian continues his week off and I'll be sitting in for him again tonight.

We'll be reporting the story so many people are talking about today, the mauling of three people by an escaped tiger at the San Francisco zoo. One of the victims was killed. The thing that has to give any zoo-goer pause is that no one can say how the tiger escaped. Her handlers say she definitely didn't exit through the door, which leaves only the possibility she managed to scale the 15-foot wide moat and 20-foot tall wall. Our Peter Alexander is working the story for us and we'll hear from him on the newscast tonight.

We're reporting another story that seems to defy the odds. It is the rescue of a 12-year old American girl stranded in the Panamanian jungle after the small plane she was on crashed killing everyone else on board. The victims include the Panamanian pilot, an American hedge fund manager and his teenage daughter who was a friend of the young survivor.

It's the day after Christmas, and most of us have yet to receive credit card bills reflecting our December spending. If the latest economic data holds true, however, Americans will sink deeper into credit card debt, while having a hard time paying their bills. Along with another alarming drop in home prices announced today, and anemic holiday retail sales numbers, experts tell us it deepens concern about the health of the economy as we head into 2008. We'll drill down deeper on these economic headlines on Nightly News tonight.

We will also show you the future of energy efficient driving. A car that goes one better than those popular hybrids, and will never require a trip to the gas station.

Finally an update on the Christmas night plans I wrote about on yesterday's blog. We decided not to try out the new chocolate fondue maker after all ( no angel food cake in the house) and instead went for a store-bought pumpkin pie, which was surprisingly tasty. And even after watching it year after year, I can say "A Christmas Story" still leaves my family chuckling at the words, "You'll shoot your eye out kid!"

I hope your Christmas was a good one too. Thanks for checking in. We'll look for you tonight on NBC Nightly News.